Masahiko Okubo was born 35 years too late, cause 33 Purgatories sounds exactly like the tape you would buy from a nasty xeroxed mailorder catalogue and then pray to Santa Postal Service for two months straight. Linekraft excels in the forgotten art of old school industrial, taking cues from Grim and Dissecting Table with a slight detour towards the rhythmic end of Greater Than One, on the almost danceable Mutant Embryo. Nowadays this sound is almost extinct, so 33 Purgatories is a thing to cherish.

Ideal Recordings provides us a huge public service by reissuing Riot, one of the very first examples of pure Noise assault. After his self-imposed exile on Japan back in 1984, John Duncan envisioned this record as an unbearable piece of music, a deliberate attack on the listener, but despite his effort to make something that ugly, Riot ironically became a key ingredient in the evolution of Japanoise as we know it. Behind the wall of static and shortwave randomness, you can trace a rich tapestry of metallic textures and a keen sense of physicality. The Black Sabbath sample is just a bonus.

After a couple of tape releases on Obsessive Fundamental Realism and Hiisi Productions, this anonymous Finnish project makes its official debut on Freak Animal. Grease District has everything you need from your harsh noise, be it the crunchy low end, the balls out attack or the angular turns. The few industrial touches are more than welcome, like the tight last track with its rhythmical hammering in front of the brutal soundstage and the lost-in-somewhere vocal snippets. More like this please.

23 February 2018

"You are here for science and the comfort of our heroic soldiers. Your life as leeching parasite on the German Reich has placed you high on the list of undesirables. However, here you will be given the opportunity to be useful to the Fatherland and the honour to be of service to its glorious pursuit of its final victory. You will find that you'll be expected to show your gratitude with your complete and immediate obedience to orders. Hesitation or refusal to perform any task assigned to you will be considered a rebellious act and appropriate punishment will follow."

28 October 2017

A few years back, electronic music was looking straight into the future for inspiration. Now, the current producers are gazing back to the past, even though it's projected through the lens of a random tumblr account. In the case of Phase Fatale - the nom de plume of Hayden Payne - the blurred relics and artifacts are the industrial electronics and leather-clad EBM of the mid-to-late 80s.
Redeemer sounds like a panic attack. The rigid programming makes you move involuntarily, but despite the awkwardness caused by your random tics, you think you look like a badass. You don't. But at least you're enjoying something that has the seal of approval from Corrupted Delights.

It would be impossible to find anyone involved the Industrial spectrum that isn't influenced somehow by The New Blockaders. So, if every piece of the TNB history is more than essential - and yes, by "every" I mean every single one, even the "conceptual" (blank) sides like Simphonie In Ø Minor or Epater Les Bourgois - then Etudes De Rien is mandatory. Two tracks of frenzied metal junk and electronic manipulation that put both imitators and naysayers to shame.

P.S. The presentation of this tape is immaculate, so kudos once more to the amazing Coherent States. Viva Negativa!

Following Suburban Hunting, Oliver Ho explores with his second album the inhospitable landscape of Dungeness, an almost official desert in the southeastern end of the UK. The English Beach was recorded inside an old fog signal building, channeling the desolation straight to its 12 tracks. Half of them bang their way with brute monochromatic pulses, while the other half are entirely out of the techno framework and are deeply rooted within the post industrial lineage.

Bleak industrial techno with a sense of thick dread all over it. Brutal Disciplin begs to be played at maximum volume, preferably in a club, but I have the feeling that stuff like this, speaks mostly to people that don't like clubs. Just listen to it wherever you want, but the ideal would be in the frozen landscape of its cover.

08 January 2017

Although the cross-pollination between industrial and dance culture is not something new and led to some glorious records, I'm still wondering why are we suspicious about these juxtapositions and we tend to remember the bad examples over the good ones. For every third-rate Wax Trax remix, there still is a 20 Jazz Funk Greats and for every Groovy, Laidback And Nasty there is a Micro-Phonies to separate the shit from the gold.

Irrgång is not a danceable record by any means, but some elements are informed of the recent industrial/techno hybrid, even if the press release insists about 'early industrial noise music', so you will move your limbs around to it, either you like it or not. For the most part, Vit Fana's debut sounds like Alberich's beat-driven pieces without the punch, while the vocals fall directly into the whole Silent Servant/Broken English Club territory. Secret Thirteen mixes are made of this stuff. I still can't decide if I really like it or I'm just a victim of the hype.

Cruise (Force The Truth)

The sole purpose of this blog is to present the place between ugly music and beautiful noise. If an artist or a label feels that any link is inappropriate, just contact me and I'll remove it as soon as I can.